Cobait Review

From the developers of the hugely successful Minecraft, Cobalt is not a game that you would have expected and quite refreshing as this game brings me back to my own person childhood favourite Alex the kid which was affectionately built into the Sega Master System and a cornerstone of 2D platform games, well in my opinion anyway.

This is not your average 2D title, it has been in development for the past four years and really shows, the elegant controls with combo buttons playing an entertaining part to learning how to swiftly rid you enemies of their pitiful existence.

The storyline of this pint size slightly chubby looking robot and his companion AI receives a distress call from what they believe is from humans, their first contact in 50 years. The plot is actually quite a pleasant mix of platforming, puzzle solving shooting mayhem from a surprisingly agile Cobalt. Word to the wise though, do the tutorial, then the advanced tutorial as i made the mistake of…oh yeah i can game haha tutorials are for newbies. Mmm i think i was the newbie for not doing it!

Once you get the niceties out the way and learn to shoot in the right direction (actually harder than it sounds) you can start to move onto the more cooler moves such as spinning in mid air like a catherine wheel shooting in all direction something Neo from the Matrix would be proud of. But what i will say is that for the sheer amount of weapons, grenades and pick ups the tutorials doesn’t really cover any of that and if i’m honest then the game play becomes really hard and confusing. I’m mean you have an active reload system that is very similar to the gears of war style which is great… if you manage to figure it out or riding pet animals and using them as projectiles taking out enemies when you get tired of them.

You use the X, Y and B buttons to select weapons. X being the melee button and any pick ups can replace your fist punching ability with instead a hand held shovel to slap 7 shades of colour out of your enemies. The Y button is used to select your weapon and the B button is for your selected grenades. All of this sounds easy enough and i assure you it is, the only flaw is when facing multiple enemies or a flock of birds you can tend to start waving your shovel at them instead of shooting as you will flap and your mind will go blank as to how to change your weapon! So i can’t stress this enough, learn to almost sleight of hand the button layout as it will help you enormously!

“fist punching ability with instead a hand held shovel to slap 7 shades of colour out of your enemies”

Cobalt acquires active camos upgrades which seems like pretty pointless as the levels don’t warrant any stealth, instead you would have to think each stage as a puzzle and find the one route and sequence to finishing each sector. I mean you can try sneak past enemies etc but it doesn’t really give you the opportunity within the level to do that as such. With the lack of ammo on levels the gung ho approach is always going to be futile, and finesse is approved with my tactful approach the better way for me anyway.

For £15.99 there is a good amount of content for a complex side scroller especially if you have friends as this game is a local multiplayer only which is a bit disappointing as with most games that’s my sticky point having to rely on your own friends to play some of the games content which is a bit naff really. But all in all most of this game is pretty well put together, you have the story to choose from which is a lot of fun and extensive which i really was pleasantly surprised with. Also you have the arcade section to choose from which has an excellent variety to choose from. First up is challenge which you can play solo or with your friends, now this game mode involves you to choose either “speed” or “combat”. Speed is basically a race to see who can get to the end and set a time which puts you onto the leaderboards which i must say is ridiculously fun and my first few attempts got me to 55th on the leaderboard so i will not stop to i reach number 1! As you can probably tell i’m pretty hooked on that game mode. Combat is completely different and pits you against multiple enemies in a level with a time limit which also is linked to leaderboards, now as ive said earlier in this review it is paramount that you learn the controls and techniques before you attempt this game mode otherwise it will be a bit of a slug fest and button baching to not much avail.

These modes are scored driven modes and a hell of a blast to compete with other global efforts. Next up is deathmatch with is a 4 player mayhem of a game mode with the score limit etc the player’s choice. Most of these game modes and be played against the computer which is handy if no friends are on hand to help. Team-strike is one my my favourites with two teams that fight to the death, if you die you take over one of your bots which is good as there are no respawns. Your equipment can be upgraded between rounds. Moving onto the the hockey style game mode where you have to both race to the middle of the level, collect the plug and move it into the opposing team’s “goal” to score. Seems easy enough but in fact it’s utter carnage and quite difficult. Last but not least is survival which the name gives it away as you will have to survive wave after wave of enemies which of course gets harder but you will earn points which can be used to upgraded armour, weapons,  buy grenades and so on.

I must say the arcade section of this game is defiantly it’s saving grace as i did enjoy the story with some extremely well thought out and creative levels but can get a tad tedious which the arcade modes breath a fresh aspect to the game for you to fall back on. I’ve had trouble with some of the levels but found i got my sharpness back from a few rounds of arcade.

Video